Car Problems

I am going to break away from my typical business discussion to write about my very recent car woes. A week ago Saturday I took my car to the local Acura dealer for what I thought should be a routine 30k service. I got a call from the service manager Saturday afternoon. He told me he had good new and bad news. I thought, this is strange. He proceeded to tell me that the car checked out ok and they had performed the service. The bad news was that they got a scratch on the car when they took it for a test drive. He assured me that they would take care of the issue and the car would be delivered back to me good as new.

I went to visit my car at the dealership on Sunday. The 'scratch' was a nice dent in the passenger side rear wheel well. Oh, there was a scratch (actually some scrapes) in addition to the dent. I guess the service manager and I have different interpretation of the damage.

I called the service manager on Monday and described what I had seen and asked him whether the dealership would waive the service fee considering the situation. The dealer's position is that they have taken care of the damage and would split the cost of the service 50/50 with me. I indicated that this was not acceptable and I have contacted the Acura corporate office to see if they might help out. The dealership has not budged from their position as far as waiving the service cost.

As of today, I still do not have my car. Lesson learned: Be careful with who you deal with and make sure you keep valuable customers happy. I have had a relationship with this particular dealership for many years, having purchased my TL from them and have serviced two cars with them. I will likely be replacing my wife's car in the next year. Of course after this experience I will not be doing business with this dealership. I might even tell a few friends about this unpleasant experience. Hopefully, I will have my car back soon.

Of course when running a business you can't just give your product away. However, for customers that represent real value to your business, waiving a fee, discounting a service, etc is usually a small investment relative to the value of preserving a long term loyal relationship.